Michael Hiltzik: American unions have finally remembered how to win
More than 30 years ago, Chicago labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan penned what he thought was an obituary for organized labor.
His classic 1991 book was titled "Which Side Are You On?: Trying to Be For Labor When It's Flat on its Back."
The book's first words were these: "Dumb, stupid organized labor: this is my cause. But too old, too arthritic, to be a cause. ... Labor gives off now an almost animal sense of weakness."
When Geoghegan wrote that, only 16% of the workforce was unionized. "Once it drops to 10, it might as well keep dropping to zero," he wrote.
At the end of 2022, the overall rate was 10.1% — and kept that high only because of the 33% membership rate of public-sector workers. In the private sector, the rate is 6%.
Yet in recent months, the follows deals with Stellantis (the owner of Chrysler) and Ford.
